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Why are we so in love with Springtime? Could it be because the air is fresh, the sky sparkling blue, the wildflowers vibrant and everything around us looks new again? How wonderful it would be to feel that way about our lives. To look at a loved one as if for the first time. To find renewed energy and passion for our life’s work. To re-discover what attracted us to our best friends. To cherish our children, whatever their ages, as if they have just been put into our arms moments after birth. To look in the mirror and see a face and body without age, without worry and with eternal beauty, vibrancy and peace.
Unfortunately, it’s possible to get so stuck somewhere in our lives that we forget how to put spring back into our hearts. I want you to discover springtime internally and allow it to wash your lives with the freshness of a spring shower. Once you discover your internal spring, you can tune into it year round, no matter what the season or what the reason you find yourself temporarily out of sorts.
Where do we start? Get ready. A wonderful place to start is in your closet because, if you’re like many of us, inside your closet you will find a representation of every age, stage, phase and size of you. You can even find out what’s missing in your life, because it’s not there. When I was a crazed workaholic, play clothes were absent from my closet except for one pair of jeans and a couple of t-shirts. Throw out things you haven’t touched in one year. Make a section for out-of-date clothes and see if they can be updated simply by shortening them, taking out shoulder pads or changing button styles. If not, get rid of them. Make another section for clothes that you are simply hanging onto for sentimental reasons: First date with the love of your life, first time you weighed your absolute drop-dead gorgeous weight, first power suit, first cashmere sweater, first “I don’t care how much it costs” trendy splurge...you’ve got the idea. Here’s a flash. If you’re not going to wear them again, get rid of them and make room for more firsts. We’re often holding onto a lot of emotional baggage in our closets. Clean out that troublesome closet, and you’ll make room in your life for all sorts of new people, experiences, activities, adventures and expansions of your personality.
The closet is a great metaphor for cleaning out the thinking and emotional patterns that are cluttering up your life. How many of your actions and reactions are based upon old thinking, comfortable or even “uncomfortable” ruts, other people’s expectations of you or old habits? Are you trying to get back to a time, a feeling, or even a memory of yourself that probably doesn’t apply anymore?
There are a lot of feelings attached to old, negative thoughts and behaviors. When you want to clean out the closet of old thoughts and emotions, you need to write a new script. For instance:
Old thought: I’m incapable of starting my own business.
Old feeling: I’m unworthy. I’m less valuable than others. I’m not as important.
New Script: I am ready and capable of starting a wonderfully successful business.
New Feeling: I feel joy in my new endeavor. I am valuable, talented, recognized and appreciated.
Every time you feel drawn back by a negative thought, switch your thinking to your new script and feel the feelings you have attached to the script. Attaching a feeling to your thought gives it power and puts it into action. The opposite is true when you’re clearing out the negative. You must detach the feeling from the negative thought and sweep both into the garbage. Your new scripts will become your eternal Spring.
Make a clean sweep this Spring and enjoy the power of living in your actualized desires.
Take a thinking and feeling inventory.
What thoughts do you no longer desire to have?
List 1: Rewrite the unwanted thoughts into positives that work for you now and throw out or burn the old list.
What feelings do you no longer desire to feel?
List 2: Acknowledge the feelings and allow yourself to feel them. Then release those feelings through a breathing exercise. For instance, exhale the bad feelings, then inhale and replace them with an opposite, more positive feeling.
What fears are you holding onto?
List 3: Date this list and then fold it up and put it away into a “doubt box.” Let the fear and doubt go as you make a conscious choice to release it to the box and not think about it anymore.
What anger still remains in your system?
List 4: Get the anger out. You can do so either through exercise, shouting, or by writing an anger letter that you do not send. Then forgive and move on. Don’t ever hold onto anger.
Now take out another sheet of paper, or perhaps a beautiful journal, and make a list of your desires. Look at your four thinking and feeling inventories. Are there any things on the old negative lists that you can rewrite into positive desires? If you have completed the 4 steps listed above and have cleaned out negative thoughts and feelings, you have done your Spring cleaning. Congratulations! You’re now ready to live your life based on the desires you have listed in your journal. Make it happen!
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